Ohayo Gozaimasu
im just on my 3 day weekend at the moment. this Monday is a national holiday..."Respect for the Aged" apparently.
on tuesday we have our volunteer course to prepare us for starting work on the wednesday. i'll be in the stroke care unit, luke's going to the gastronomy dept. im looking forward to getting into some sort of routine. So far its felt quite a lot like a holiday. no strict plan and no real work. this next week should hopefully change that. then i can feel a little bit more settled.
so this last week has basically involved random trips and visits organised by the hospital. not really that interesting to be honest.
we saw Nagoya castle. which wasnt exactly what you’d expect from a castle. For one, there were four elevators…
we went to our first restaurant where you do the kneeling thing. pretty uncomfortable. Even the japanese people werent used to it. we ate some sort of baked eel dish with a side order of eel kidney soup. was called hitsumaboshi. was pretty good. the only bad thing was the cramp and pins and needles from kneeling on your legs for so long. they let us stretch our legs out in the end. This was after we tried explaining pins and needles. They don’t seem to have it in Japan?? or maybe they just didnt get our cherade actions of ramming forks into our feet
we visited some other places and once again ended up in situations where we didnt have a clue what was going on. meeting new people, everyone speaking in japanese. we're used to them now though. Just nod, bow and say some Japanese. Pretty standard greetings and nothing goes too wrong.
On Friday we gave a presentation to the doctors of the hospital. There was about 40 senior members of the hospital and the whole thing went down pretty well. There was some mild applause.
friday night we went and found this american bar called soda pop. i had a bacon cheeseburger and a pint of carlsberg. We need to try and not go there too much. but there a bit clever and they gave us a coupon for our next visit. so we have to go back now at some point.
we played some pool and met these three american speaking guys. they were pretty hammered and hilarious to talk to. they asked us why we're here and we said we're working at the nagoya hospital. well one thing led to another and we spent the night pretending to be qualified english doctors. i was in paediatrics and luke was an orthopaedic surgeon. good job no one needed any medical attention that night.
Not much planned now really.
EDIT
Just got back from the real Nagoya centre….we think. Seriously everywhere looks like a city centre with huge department stores and high street shops that seem to stretch for miles. Massive crossroads, flashing lights and all you’d expect from a city centre. The only thing is, you go a couple of subway stops and you’re in what seems to be a huge city centre again. Anyway we went to a pretty big department store and bought tickets to see razorlight and hard-fi. The actual venue was just on the top floor of the department store. Should be good.
Ive put up what photos and videos I can. Some links here…
VIDEOS
soda pop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ECpCNfWmxg
crazy shop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_reTOLBf74
toxic chemical drill at hospital: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlGVP9G_j0k
PHOTOS
http://www.bubbleshare.com/myalbum/64719.cc47cf850aa
http://www.bubbleshare.com/myalbum/65593.b321d1db54d
Will get some photos of the hospital soon. And will write again after my first week of work. Everyone seemed nice where im working so it should be good.
Thanks to anyone who sent me an email by the way. will respond as soon as possible.
Dewa mata,
James
